However, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says there will not be an issue with protecting our neutrality.

He told deputies: "We have a long-standing tradition of non-alignment and neutrality, one that I and this Government will defend because we believe our non-alignment and neutrality makes us stronger and g ives us more influence around the world. PESCO, for us, is going to be something different than it perhaps is for other countries."

He added: "We will only opt in to certain into certain programmes and certain parts of PESCO that we want to be involved in - for example counter-terrorism, things like cybersecurity, peacekeeping.

"What we're not going to do... we're not going to be buying aircraft carriers, we're not going to be buying fighter jets, we're not going to be shopping around military trade fairs for any of these things. That's not in our interest."

He acknowledged that spending will rise - but pointed out that the Government had already committed to an increase in defence spending in its 2015 'white paper on defence'.

16:38 6 Dec 2017 Stephen McNeice 5 hours ago Tweets by NewstalkFM

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